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04/12/2011

F1 season review & 2012 driver line-ups

The 2011
season is over and now it’s time to reflect back to the season, the teams &
the drivers. The two prominent changes were a new tyre manufacturer in the name
of Pirelli and DRS (Drag Reduction System) to aid overtaking. In this blog, I
will review all the teams performance in the season and their confirmed &
prospective driver line-up for 2012 season.

Red Bull
Racing:

‘Champions’,
nothing else can describe RBR’s 2011 season. From start to finish, the team
dominated everyone and rest playing a catching game. They clinched the
Constructors Championship in Korea while Sebastian Vettel clinched the Drivers
Championship in Japan. In addition Vettel created a world record of 15 poles in
a season. Webber had a tough season in terms of Vettel but he managed to win
one race in the end in the last race of the season. Webber won the DHL Fastest
Lap award for recording 7 fastest lap in the season.

2012 Driver
Line-up: Sebastian
Vettel & Mark Webber.

Reserve: Daniel Ricciardo or Jean-Eric Vergne,
are the two front runners for the reserve role.

McLaren
Mercedes:

A season of
ups & downs for McLaren, they were for most part of the season the second
best team. They were the closest to RBR all through the season and the only
other team to get a pole position apart from RBR. Hamilton had the toughest season of his
career, he did win 3 races and got the only non-RBR pole of the season but yet
his season was marred by the DNF’s & his on-track spats with Massa. While
Button took the full advantage, he started slow in the season but the next half
was absolutely perfect.

A trouble
season for them, a car which was never really in the best of position to fight
with RBR. Alonso gave them their lone win of the season and some handful of
podiums. They didn’t have the qualifying pace, but they had good race pace as
Alonso pushed the slow car to its extreme limit. Massa disappointed with his
below par performances, no podiums for him. His low point was obviously the
on-track spats with Hamilton. Despite a failure, Massa has been retained for
2012 season.

They were
always chasing the top 3 teams throughout the season. They were behind Lotus
Renault but with a consistent performance they managed to get ahead of Lotus
and take a comfortable lead to finish ahead of them. Still they didn’t get any
podium this season as P4 was the best result they could manage. Rosberg ended
as the best driver with Schumacher behind him in the second season of his
return.

2012 Driver
Line-up: Michael
Schumacher & Nico Rosberg.Reserve: Sam Bird the frontrunner but I
think Adrian Sutil can be a part if he doesn’t get a seat to drive.

Lotus
Renault:

They
received a bad news at the start of the season as Robert Kubica was ruled out
of the season after he suffered fatal injuries in rally. They had to hire Nick
Heidfeld to partner Vitaly Petrov. They had a great start with two back to back
podiums finishes but then came the gradual fall. With series of bad races, they
lost the P4 position to Mercedes. Nick was axed mid-season and Bruno Senna was
promoted to the race seat but little did it help. In the end they were very
close to loosing the P5 position to Force India but they held on.

2012 Driver
Line-up: Kimi
Raikkonen (C) & Vitaly Petrov/Bruno Senna/Romain Grosjean with Adrian Sutil
& Robert Kubica (if he can return) in the mix too.Reserve: Whoever doesn’t get the race seat
will automatically take the reserve role, in addition female racer Maria de
Villota can be a part of the team.

Sahara Force
India:

The season
started on a slower side for the team, which they said was because they were
mainly developing the 2010 car in the fly away races. Once the 2011 specific
updates were on, their fortunes changed immediately. They were regularly in Q3
and among points, they even overtook Sauber in the Championship to be P6. By
the end of the season they came close to beat Lotus with only 4 points
separating them. Sutil was behind rookie Di Resta but came on well to beat him
in the second half, raising his game well. For me Di Resta is the rookie of the
year.

2012 Driver
Line-up: Nico Hulkenberg
& Paul Di Resta, the front runners with Adrian Sutil having an outside
chance.Reserve: With Sahara in, I think Karun
Chandhok can get a reserve role in the team if Sutil leaves. In addition Max
Chilton & Jules Bianchi are the other racers who can get the role.

Sauber:

The team
had a smooth start to the season with staying ahead of Force India for some
part of the season but as the mid-season approached they started loosing out in
performance and eventually lost the P6 position to Force India and never really
was in the position to get it back. Instead they had to evade the growing
threat of STR taking away the P7 position but in the end they managed to stay
ahead of them by a small margin. Both Perez & Kobayashi did a decent job in
the season and therefore they are retained for 2012 season.

A pretty
erratic season for the team, with some very good results in the race to very
poor qualifying. In some races they were up with the upper mid-field while in
some they were down with lower mid-field teams. Towards the end of the season
they up their game were close to beat Sauber and get the P7 position but
eventually fell short by 3 points. Both their drivers were always battling out
with each other to get in the eyes of the senior RBR team.

2012 Driver
Line-up: Jamie
Alguersuari & Sebastien Buemi are the front runners with Daniel Ricciardo
& Jean-Eric Vergne well in line.Reserve:Whoever misses out with the race
seat maybe demoted to the reserve role.

Williams:

The worst
season for the Williams team as they failed in every aspect to deliver. Nothing
was going right for them as in one race after the another, they just didn’t had
the pace to match the other mid-field teams. They just managed 5 points from the season,
and we can well term it as a disastrous season. Both Rubens & Pastor
struggled as they tried their best to get the extreme from the car which was
under-performing.

The first
of the new teams. Over the season the team improved quite a lot in terms of
pace in races. Towards the end, they managed to beat some lower mid-field teams
which was in itself a good sign for the team. Heikki & Trulli, a perfect
mix of youth and experience has helped
the team to come out and challenge the mid-fielders.

Once again
the team was in trouble at the start of the season as they couldn’t get the car
ready on time for testing and eventually failed to get in the 107% for the
season opener. Mid-season they were sold to Thesan Capital and since then the
team got stable and gradually improved. Even after all the troubles, they
managed to beat Virgin and once again secure the P11 position in Championship.
Initially they hired Indian Narain Karthikeyan but he was replaced by Daniel
Ricciardo in mid-season though he came back for one off race in India. Ricciardo
didn’t disappoint in his rookie season as he matched well against Liuzzi.

2012 Driver
Line-up: Pedro De
La Rosa (C) & Vitantonio Liuzzi/Narain Karthikeyan/Daniel Ricciardo are all
in line to get the second seat.

Reserve: Dani Clos is one name I can think
of.

Marussia
Virgin:

Another
team where nothing worked right throughout the season. They couldn’t improve
much from last season. They ended up last once again and struggled keeping up
pace with Team Lotus and even HRT. Still there were some bright performances
but overall they have to work hard for the next season. Jerome in a rookie
season did well against his experienced team-mate Glock.

2012 Driver
Line-up: Timo Glock
& Charles Pic.Reserve: Robert Wickens is the lone name I
predict.

We saw some
fantastic races in the season, for me the best has to be Canadian GP. It was
well past mid-night here in India and I was up watching the race. A long wait,
interesting race and a nerve cracking finish made it the best race of the
season. The Pirelli tyres made the race interesting to a certain extent as
strategy in races became an important aspect. However, qualifying and specially
Q3 could have been interesting as in most of the races the lower half teams in
order to save tyres didn’t set times. Moving on to DRS, mixed opinion here as
we saw both its advantages & disadvantages. It did aid in overtaking but
the pure racing was gone in certain races. Mostly DRS was helpful in tracks
where overtaking was not so happening in previous seasons. We also saw the
inaugural Indian GP happening, I went for the race. It was my first F1
experience and I must say it was just too good. I was happy to hear that all the
drivers loved the track and the atmosphere. All in all, it was a mixed season
with many highs & few lows. I will rate the season as 7.5 out of 10.